HomeMy WebLinkAboutMilitary Home Interview Gene MoenINTERVIEWEE : Gene Moen
Stephanie Noble Interviewing Gene Moen
Oral History Project - Military Memory Lane
August 8, 1999
MODERATOR : Stephanie Noble
GM: Where is that?
SN: Um, it's North Bryan, northern West Campus in Bryan I.S.D. It's off of
? road. It's a school called Bonham. And then there's my school, Navarro.
GM: And so I've been here what, twenty -eight years, almost, twenty -seven
years, and things have taken place that I don't even know what it is.
SN: Yeah, things change.
GM: Like when I went out there in Copperfield, I think Copperfield.
SN: Yeah, Sam Houston.
GM: Yeah.
SN: Then there's the one across the street in Trinity park that's uh, Bowen,
may not be Trinity, but there's another one, it's Tiffany, Tiffany park.
GM: We had a flag show, The Sojourners had a flag show. And I had
called and asked them where it was.
SN: Now what are The Sojourners? What is that group?
GM: Uh, Sojourners is a group of mass formation who were military officers
that served active duty and does include, that went there of members,
honorary members, that devote their patriotism. We have a caroll unit called
hero's 76?
(INTERRUPTION)
SN: No, we're fine, no no no. So you do flag shows?
GM: We go there and promote patriotism. And we go to different schools
and put on flag shows, you know, it's flags over Texas. We have programs
of flags over the United States, six flags over Texas, or flags over Texas, and
then we have a program that we put on for the kindergartners and first
graders and it's uh, we don't give all that dates and stuff. We have ? and we
have velcro and we make the shape of the state, we have an outline and we
talk about a colony and when it became a state, and the flag of the state was.
SN: At that time?
GM: Yeah.
SN: And how long have you been a part of tlKit?
GM: Probably, fifteen to seventeen years at !cast.
SN: And how often do you'll meet?
GM: We meet every month.
SN: Every month.
GM: Yeah. We usually ... at Ramada Aggieland Inn and have our dinner
and we have a program and uh, we have very very big programs. We used
to have not very good programs. And I got in as second Vice President, the
first Vice President, I had the .... Banners with us. We had Red Cashion
come in.
SN: Oh he's a nice man.
GM: Yeah, and we've had General Darling C?) who was Commandant of
Cadets and ? We've had Reagan Brown who's the Secretary of Agriculture
I think in the state of Texas. He's a very good speaker.
SN: Is he?
GM: You know. We've had some good speakers. This is, the idea is, we
have the ladies come in with us too. Heroes, no ladies, but they help us
when we do a flag show. They dress up in Colonial costumes, you know we
wear our Colonial uniform and they wear long dressed and bonnets.
SN: Oh, how nice. That's a good show. So, in the uh, back to the military
aspect of your hole uh, you were primarily a pilot and you transported
supplies in Vietnam and you transported generals and military service men
and women back and forth.
GM: Yeah, my first priority, my career w: e tense.
SN: What would you do in that?
GM: Oh gosh, we would pull up and identify aircraft and make sure they
weren't Russian.
SN: Ok.
GM: We'd fly off in the night and snoN\ s would go up and we would
identify airplanes and if he wasn't on his i; Ht man and his time when he
was supposed to be, coming from the north we would go out and identify
him.
SN: You didn't do anything but identify'? I i d n't shoot him or anything?
GM: Oh no, we didn't shoot but we figured the first man in would be shot
down if he was you know, Russian. He would shoot down the aircraft. But
the idea was you identify the airplane a1i,' a lot of times an airline would
coming in from England, come up acro::s 2 north. It would be Amy,
Navy, or it would be someone coming i n and landing. Same thing up in ?
but there and we had to fly out and identify aircrafts, but uh, problem was
that no matter what the weather, that hoc: went off when you flew, you may
or may not come back but you had to g( ' identify that airplane first.
Then you go to try and get back in becn , n re was no landing field and
you had to back north until you got back Inland. Sometimes if it got
too bad we wouldn't fly but the emerger ble was on you. The idea
was that you had five minutes to be ai •
down the stairs, jumping in your cockpit,
SN: Now, so your initial service was to
flight plans and then after that what did you c'
GM: Well, I came back to Minneapolis ► d I Clew there for a while. Then I
went into a ? office and I helped in, he';,ed secure supplies and parts and
maintenance of the different parts of b. in airplanes to automobiles.
Then I went to Kansas City, I was a con.
saw to it that the automobile engines wer
out on bids, get them repaired, the uh, ?
repaired, do what we did to get the en g i
down, they would give us the bid. tF would give the bid to uh,
purchasing and then they would say if rac; move it we would go down
and move the item to ? Lowest bids we lot always the best but never the
less that's what it comes down to when r:;t comes to worst. Uh, we had
typewriters and other machines in the 1 r contract and had to have
those cleaned, you know? It was main! and one of those electrical
typewriters go down, secretary couldn' t t ► typing and so they would call
purchasing, purchasing would call us, an cn 11 the vendors to come out.
Then I left there and went to Vietna. m Vietnam flying cargo,
troops, and so forth. I came back to Rai (1 flew special air division.
Then I went down to Germany and fle t special air mission there.
Flying generals and admirals and other I ly trips during the week to
headquarters and ? Other places from, I om North Africa to the tip
of Norway to uh, Lisbon, Spain all the r Gran, Iran.
SN: Now were you trained to fly in C, Vhere were you trained to
fly?
GM: I first had a private license when 1
SN: Oh you did?
GM: And as long as training to fly in
way the military flew. I went to
basically a primary, came to San Marc;,
Went from there to Moody airforce ba
fighter interceptor school. And then
And uh, it means running
n g it up and moving out.
fv aircrafts that were not on
:►intenance officer. There we
out and repaired, put them
be repaired, fire trucks to be
wn to uh, downtown, to tear
I just trained to fly the
'ase in Georgia which is
v basic uh, Phase I and ?
et instrument school. And
p landing in Virginia for
three days in the oldest airforce base, B
the Goose Bay, Labrador, and Greenlan(
SN: Have you ever been back to these r
GM: No, I've been back to Minneapoli
National Guard Base, Air National Guam d<..
a lot of changes have been made. But th Air
bases they have in a lot of places that
National Guard. Minneapolis would be
on the other, and civilian Air Force a
have really visited since I got out, excel).. >>,
Antonio after I retired and uh, we visite
Lackton now for medical pursuits.
SN: Did you ever receive any medals c:
GM: Oh yeah, got a few, but all those ,,
coffee at Luby's. I had a Service Cony
Vietnam Medal, Vietnam Service Medi.
SN: Is there any one particular medal c:
mind that you want to share? Any one
Any one experience?
GM: Well, I can remember Vietnam
and the Vietnamese was speaking Vi
what they was saying and it was quit-_
French, I could understand a little French
and at the proper altitude and headed in 111
SN: But up until then you had no idea?
GM: We had, one of the things that t
fact that we would take off and they NA
SN: So that no one could see you?
GM: No, saving electricity, they wouk_
battery switch, I thought man.
for six weeks and then up to
irteen months.
'ter all this time?
lid I visited the base, it's a
now, which is not the same,
Force has cut down on a lot of
ut out and gave it to the Air
They have Navy on one side,
hat's the only place that I
,l ph, when were down in San
right off or, often I go to
Le stuff doesn't pay a cup of
medal, Air Medal, the uh,
t know the rest of them.
toy that sticks out in your
I: it sticks out in your mind?
night into the mountains
nd I couldn't understand
31.1 t they started speaking
n cw that we were on course
! direction.
to eally bothersome was the
I the electricity off.
the generator switch, the
SN: To the plane or to the city?
GM: Plane.
SN: So you had no lights
GM: Couldn't have no radio.
SN: Could you see the dials on the plane"
GM: No.
SN: So you were flying by instinct?
GM: They were just flying, see they were ; i command of the airplane.
SN: The Vietnamese were?
GM: It may have been one of the guys who asked how long it would take the
VHF radio to start up before we can talk on it and they said two minutes.
Remarks:
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